Ricardo Arona has been training hard to face Wanderlei Silva on December 31st, during PRIDE’s New Year?s eve show. That is the day he plans to take the middleweight belt from his rival. Arona is focusing his attention on his physical conditioning, and is ready to repeat the performance he had in August, when he defeated Silva by unanimous judge’s decision during the Pride Middleweight Grand Prix 2005 semifinals.’On December 31st I’m fighting for the belt and intend to finish Silva once and for all’ he fired, speaking about his rivalry towards the champion. ‘It’s the same training as always, only I’m looking for more intensity, I want a better performance. The rivalry is healthy as long as there’s respect involved. It’s something to add to the sport, so that the athletes train harder and develop better. With Wanderlei I had a problem and this grudge is a personal one’ said Arona, who also mentioned he wishes to fight Overeem sometime in the future.Arona’s old buddy, Paulo Filho is confident about his friend’s performance. ‘Arona is strong like hell’ says Filho. ‘When Arona and Paulo are together, it is just like a planetary alignment, it is shocking! However it is also really a cosmic show, because they are really funny together, both remember lots of hilarious stories and all the team has fun during training’ says Mario Sperry, one of Top Team leaders.Roan Carneiro Jucao, 80kg ADCC fighter, states that all the BTT guys have been focusing on these two important battles for BTT athletes: Arona x Wanderlei and Bustamante x Henderson. ‘The weather is getting hot during all our training, and Arona trained real hard yesterday’ says Jucao, who dreams about fighting UFC or ‘Rumble on The Rock’ next year.
